U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,924 relates to an improved television interface system which accesses a downloaded TV program information database, which can be continually updated, and which is provided either "over the air", over cable or satellite transmission, or other "fast data" path, and which automatically correlates the information provided thereby with the preferences of the user, to create at least one further program information database based upon the results of the correlation. The parent application relates to a method and apparatus which utilizes aspects of the correlation methodology, to determine the electronic shopping preferences of a user.
The instant application applies the above mentioned correlation techniques to the task of aiding the user in selecting a movie from a large database, for example a "video on demand" type on-line movie system.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,047,867 describes an interface for a TV-VCR system which enabled the user to enter information concerning the user's favorite television programs as well as information about programs stored on video tape. Such information can include program name, broadcast channel, starting time, length, repeat pattern and whether the user wanted the program recorded. The patent further describes an interface system in which such information could be provided in an intuitive and easy manner through the television receiver's PIP display. The teachings of this patent are incorporated by reference herein.
Television systems utilizing downloadable information databases have been described, for example, by Insight Telecast, Inc. and in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,751,578; 4,706,121 and 4,977,455, which are incorporated by reference herein. Using these systems, TV program information can be downloaded and stored in a memory and used by a processor to control a programmable TV tuner. U.S. Pat. No. 5,093,718 describes a system which can provide such information, including graphics and interactive options, over a "fast data" path which can be a cable, fiber optic or satellite system. Interactive, or "two way" television systems permitting viewer responses to video programming, are described for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,101,267 and 4,591,906, which are incorporated by reference herein. Integrated data services networks (IDSN) and bi-directional cable systems can also provide this interactivity and have been extensively discussed in the literature. These references are incorporated by reference herein.
In the December, 1986 issue of "Communications of the ACM" (Vol. 29, No. 12, pp. 1229-1239), in an article by Stanfill and Kahle entitled "Parallel Free-Text Search On The Connection Machine System", the method known as "free text search" is described in the article which details one method in which seed words are located which can be used to correlate information provided in one or more portions of text. Another paper entitled "Incremental Relevance Feedback" by Aalbersberg, which was published in the Proceedings of the Fifteenth Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, Jun. 21-24, 1992, describes the use of "free text" search techniques in text information retrieval. The teachings of these articles are specifically incorporated by reference herein.
Pay-per-view movie selection/delivery systems are popular features of today's cable television systems. Most of these systems feature a limited choice of movies shown on a fixed schedule which can be viewed if requested and paid for by the viewer. Digital television technology, which permits rapid delivery of programming in compressed digital form, now makes it possible for cable, DBS, ISDN and "video dialtone" services to offer a much greater number of choices to the viewer on an "on demand" or "near on demand" basis. Such systems might offer hundreds of different movie titles in many different categories. The concept of "browsing" from among so many different possible choices is usually dealt with by nesting several different menus and thus, with time, aiding the viewer in choosing one movie from the many offered. Selection and ordering of a chosen movie with these new systems can therefore involve complicated menus and selection steps.
The object of the instant invention is to simplify this browsing and selection process.